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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26656171">Someone Gets Hurt</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/glutenfreerye/pseuds/glutenfreerye'>glutenfreerye</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Mean Girls (2004), Mean Girls - Richmond/Benjamin/Fey</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst with a Happy Ending, Enemies With Benefits, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, How Do I Tag, Secret Relationship, Slow Burn, Who is she?, communication?, emotionally at least, pre/mid/post canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 10:48:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>11,183</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26656171</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/glutenfreerye/pseuds/glutenfreerye</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Janis doesn’t know why she went along with it. In retrospect, she doesn’t know if she ever really had a choice. Regina George always got her way, and eventually she stopped trying to make sense of it all and channeled all of the unwanted baggage that came along with their arrangement into making North Shore’s perfect Queen Bee come undone beneath her whenever she rang. And she rang often.</p>
<p>--<br/>Basically an AU where Regina and Janis are in an enemies-with-benefits situation and healthy communication is #nonexistent.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Regina George/Janis Ian, Regina George/Janis Sarkisian</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>78</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. A Cautionary Tale</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Janis was never a very good actor.</p>
<p>She’s known this since her mother forced her into her first (and subsequently, last) community theater production back in the third grade. Apparently, you still have to put in minimal effort to appear human when you’re playing the role of “Child #3” in some obscure play no one’s ever heard of. She’s never been able to pull off a convincing lie, always getting too flustered in the moment, or too overzealous in her excuses for the other person to believe whatever word vomit came out of her mouth. Too much, too little… she’d never found the balance that so many do that allows little white lies to pepper their everyday vernacular.</p>
<p>Perhaps that’s why, if you looked just a second longer at the girl in the paint-covered clothes leaning nonchalantly against the lockers near the second-floor all-gender (specifically, <em>single-stall</em>) restroom, you’d notice her shifting her weight a little too often from foot to foot to be natural. Or how intently she inspected the black nail polish chipping away on her fingers. Or how the faintest sound of approaching footsteps made her already too-tense shoulders hunch up a little further.</p>
<p>Okay, so maybe she was a terrible actor, bite her.</p>
<p>She chanced a glance at her watch, frowning when she noticed just how long she’d been posted up outside the bathroom. Not many people were still roaming the halls as the clock drew near 4:00 PM, so her feigned indifference wasn’t <em>particularly</em> necessary, except for that fact that it totally was, because Janis Sarkisian would rather die than admit she was anxiously waiting for––</p>
<p>An unmistakable cadence of clipped heels derailed her train of thought before she could think too much on things better left alone. She trained her eyes on back on her hands as the footsteps grew louder, and just when you’d expect them to come to the peak of their crescendo Janis was yanked none-too-gently into the empty bathroom. She didn’t need to look to know that the perfectly manicured hand twisted in her jacket could only belong to one person.</p>
<p>“Regina George, fashionably late as always.” Janis hoped her words came across as apathetic rather than annoyed, and by the way the girl in question just flipped her hair and scoffed, she’d say it was an acceptable combination of both.</p>
<p>“Unlike some people, everything I do is fashionable.” Regina’s voice was as cool and collected as ever, even as her hold tightened on Janis’ paint-stained denim.</p>
<p>It was Janis’ turn to roll her eyes. Of course, Regina would still find a way to belittle her even in their current situation, which is why she didn’t hesitate in firing back just as coolly. “You certainly weren’t complaining about my ‘unfashionability’ the last time you called me.”</p>
<p>Regina’s eyes narrowed the slightest bit, and she stepped an inch further into Janis’ bubble, effectively trapping her against the door. Her glare was predatory, and any normal, God-fearing student of North Shore would have made their peace right then and there. But Janis knew why she was there, and a small, sick part of her thrilled at the barely perceptible hunger lurking just below the surface in those baby blues.</p>
<p>“You sure have a lot of balls for someone so averse to them.” The blonde’s hand slowly slid from its place near Janis’ waist, tortuously slow, and up her chest before toying with the baby hairs at the base of her neck. The strangled noise she forced down when those meticulously filed nails scratched against her scalp only made the shit-eating smirk Regina wore grow, well, even more shit-eating. “Besides, if you didn’t want to be here, you didn’t have to wait around.”</p>
<p>“And face the wrath of standing up Regina George? I don’t think you can ruin my life any more than you already have, but I’d rather not chance it.”</p>
<p>For the briefest of seconds Regina’s eyes flashed with something Janis couldn’t quite place, but before she could think too long on that it was gone and her general aloof demeanor returned when she reached behind Janis to flick the lock on the door in what was by now second nature.</p>
<p>“Must we always make such boring small talk before the main event?”</p>
<p>“Just making sure you’re getting a healthy dose of misery to keep you humble.” Janis hoped the other girl couldn’t feel her pulse racing in anticipation of what was to come, but when no snarky response came panic set in, and Janis began rambling. “Wouldn’t want to get you to this, you might try and start calling up North Shore’s resident Space Dy––“</p>
<p>“Jesus Christ,” Regina’s hand was fisted in Janis’ hair by now, and though she’d take it to the grave, Janis was thankful that they were finally getting a move on with ‘the main event’ as Regina put it. “Just shut up and kiss me already.”</p>
<p>She said it as an order, but before Janis could obey Regina closed the short distance between them in a kiss that could only be described as primal. Janis wasn’t able to hold back the groan it elicited, and Regina swallowed it with fervor. This kiss was less a give and take of control than a rehearsed battle that Janis knew she was going to lose, but she kissed back with all the pent-up frustrations of her day as she pushed off the door and hoisted Regina up onto the counter. Legs encircled her, hands pushed her jacket off her shoulders and to the floor, fingers danced underneath her shirt to skirt across the skin they found there, and despite the number of times they’d found themselves in this exact position Janis still got the same exhilarating rush at the blonde’s ministrations as she had the first time she found herself between Regina George’s legs.</p>
<p> She broke the kiss and didn’t have to look to know an indignant pout had settled on Regina’s lips, one that quickly disappeared when Janis refocused her attention to the unblemished neck before her, trailing open mouthed kisses down, down, down before nipping at the skin exposed by one of the blonde’s more revealing tops. She bit down a little harder when she heard a rather undignified whimper from above her, but almost as it had escaped Regina squeezed on her shoulder. They spoke at the same time:</p>
<p>“No marks.”</p>
<p>“I know, no marks.” Janis looked up and locked gazes with the other girl as she whispered into her chest, “Can’t let anyone know you’re hooking up with someone who actually knows what foreplay is.”</p>
<p>Regina’s already flushed cheeks seemed to redden further but she said nothing, opting instead to work on undoing the buttons of Janis’ flannel. The silence didn’t go unnoticed.</p>
<p>Had she not been, well, in the middle of something, Janis might have dwelled on that a little longer. She wasn’t a huge fan of thinking on things in general, and thankfully the saving grace of these… encounters she had with Regina was that very little thinking could be done when she was busy doing… other things.</p>
<p>If she thought too long on what they were doing, she’d have to think about why.</p>
<p>If she thought too long about why, she’d have to remember back to when it first started.</p>
<p>If she thought <em>too</em> long on exactly <em>how</em> long they’d been doing this little dance of theirs, she’d have to acknowledge that it was <em>far too long</em> to be a casual thing (and she did NOT want to think about what that meant). Not when they had a perfectly good enemies-with-benefits sitch going for them.</p>
<p>What would the student body think if they knew their Queen Bee had spent the better part of the last year hooking up with the Janis Sarkisian.</p>
<p>She didn’t think about that, at least not in the middle of things. Afterwards, however, once they’d both gotten what they came for (pun not intended, bad Janis) and Regina was carefully reapplying the lipstick Janis had successfully kissed away, it seemed to be all she <em>could </em>think of.</p><hr/>
<p>The day this illicit affair began wasn’t too long after Janis’ return to North Shore High. After her mother pulled her from her last month of middle school, she wasn’t ready to be thrown to the wolves with wounds so fresh, not when Freshman year was bound to be hell on earth anyway. And that’s not even considering almost everyone in the incoming class would have had a front row seat to the shitstorm that followed Regina’s birthday. It didn’t take much thought to take the next year for herself. She would rather balance online school with a rigorous outpatient art therapy program than</p>
<p> Before she knew it, sophomore year was around the corner and she was faced with another choice. She’d been terrified of going back to school after being away, of facing the reality of what had been plaguing her nightmares night after night, but as hurt as she was, she was also <em>pissed. </em>Righteously so. And she was <em>not</em> about to let anyone think she could be kicked and stay down, least of all Regina George. She spent so many hours in the days leading up to her first day back, walking through every single possible showdown between her and the girl that had snatched her life right out from under her, so that when the day eventually came she was fully prepared to march right up to that scum-sucking, fart-mouth life-ruiner and tear her a new one.</p>
<p>What she wasn’t prepared for was Regina totally ignoring her very existence.</p>
<p>The first thing that Janis noticed when she scanned the cafeteria for Regina that day was just what a big a difference a year and some change could make. Her friend––no, her old friend––had always worn nicer than average clothes, had always been the center of peoples’ attention without even trying, but the girl Janis saw before her bore little resemblance to the Regina she remembered. It was like looking at some alien imposter rather than someone she had known her whole life. From her posture to her hair, down to the creases in her clothes–– everything about the girl was… perfect.</p>
<p>Too perfect. She looked plastic.</p>
<p>And when Gretchen Wieners leaned in to whisper something in Regina’s ear, and the blonde <em>finally</em> chanced a glance to where Janis stood, for a split-second Janis saw what looked like fear.</p>
<p> No, she had to be crazy. Certainly, because the next second whatever she thought she saw was gone and Regina was facing away from her to chat to whoever was sat across from her.</p>
<p>Janis absolutely did <em>not </em>cry in the bathroom instead of going to PE after lunch.</p>
<p>This went on for weeks: Regina ignoring Janis no matter how hard the latter tried to catch her eye. She’d even tried syncing her arrival with Regina’s, hoping that maybe if she confronted her before school (not unlike how this had all started in the first place) Regina would have no choice but to listen to Janis’ (not at all) rehearsed soliloquy of angst and betrayal and revenge. But no matter when or where she managed to spot Regina, there was never a moment she was alone. And with Regina’s flock of adoring followers always near, there wasn’t the slightest possibility that Janis could get close enough to her to give her a piece of her mind without drawing any unwanted attention.</p>
<p>She just wanted to call Regina a bitch without a horde of angry worker-bees turning on her with the same old, tired insults from the 8<sup>th</sup> grade. Was that too much to ask?</p>
<p>She’d made one friend at least: a kid almost too gay to function named Damian. He was one of the only people aside from the teachers who didn’t immediately set in with the lesbian jokes, in fact, he hadn’t even alluded to Janis’ sexuality until one day after school when she couldn’t hold it in anymore and had to tell <em>someone</em> that there was some truth to the slanderous rumors Regina helped circulate over a year before.</p>
<p>(To say he’d been accepting would be a criminal understatement. He threw her a whole-ass party, just the two of them, that was essentially Lesbian Culture 101: A History through Film.)</p>
<p>But as days turned into weeks and weeks to months, her anger never went away. If anything, Regina’s blatant refusal to so much as acknowledge Janis’ presence helped stoke the fire. How could she do something so cruel and heartless and then… not? Continue to be cruel and heartless? Look, none of it made sense to Janis, but it all would’ve been a helluva lot easier to comprehend if Regina had just miraculously turned evil one day and continued to torment her instead of ruining her life and then pretend she didn’t even exist.</p>
<p>Whatever she was planning, Janis didn’t like it one bit. Any day now she expected Regina to deliver the final blow to the coffin lid and stomp out what smoldering embers remained of her social status. But that day never came, and it wat that which eventually drove Janis over the edge.</p>
<p>That day had started off fairly normal. School was monotonous and structure was blegh and all that other stereotypical rebellious teenage melodrama, and Janis had stayed late to help Damien finish painting the scenery for whatever show the drama club was putting on that fall. He’d left for the day shortly thereafter, and she was taking her sweet time before setting off on her own walk home. There weren’t a lot of students still lingering around, and there were at least fifteen minutes before the teachers started yelling for any stragglers to go home. She kind of liked the silence that the halls provided at times like this; it was a nice change of pace from the tension she usually felt during the school day. But of course, with her luck, even that couldn’t last.</p>
<p>She’d transferred the last of her books from her locker into her ripped up backpack and slammed the blue metal door before turning and coming face to face with Regina George (there, alone, in the flesh) for the first time in, well… a year, four months, and sixteen days (not that she was counting or anything). It felt like they stood there in a frozen standoff for a fraction of an eternity, but before Janis could think of what to do with this situation, Regina pulled an about-face and darted into bathroom at the end of the hall.</p>
<p>To which Janis had one immediate reaction: Oh, <em>hell </em>no.</p>
<p>Her feet were moving before her brain could tell her this was a terrible idea, and she managed to grab the door’s handle before the girl on the other side could engage the lock. When the door didn’t budge Janis scoffed and made sure to speak loud enough to be heard through the door between them.</p>
<p>“Really Regina? Holding the door? What are you? Twelve?” She glared at the door, imagining Regina’s dolled up face when she rammed her shoulder into it. “What?”</p>
<p>Shove.</p>
<p>“Are you scared?”</p>
<p>Shove.</p>
<p>“Scared that if you’re too close to me you might catch my gross lesbian cooties?” She really didn’t expect Regina to give in so quickly, which backfired spectacularly for her when she reeled back for a particularly enthusiastic shove just as the door swung inwards. She shrieked as she barreled headfirst into Regina’s chest, driving them both into the wall opposite the doorway in as ungraceful a manner as humanly possible while still managing to stay upright. She hadn’t quite managed to steady herself before the impact, so when her vision snapped back into focus the first thing she noticed was just how close you had to be to see the faintest of freckles peeking out from underneath Regina’s makeup. And that’s pretty fucking close. Oh wait.</p>
<p>She was that close.</p>
<p>“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Regina snapped, pushing Janis far enough away that it brought her crashing back down to reality (which is, literally, the last place she wanted to be). She hadn’t thought much past the ‘get into the bathroom where Regina was very obviously avoiding her’ part of this plan, and now that she was alone in this confined space with a girl who looked ready to kill, she was rethinking it altogether. She’d spent countless hours imagining exactly what she’d tell Regina in a moment like this, sat through dozens of therapy sessions working through the trauma that went along with preteen betrayal and ostracization. Now that she had Regina in her clutches, she didn’t know what to say. She only knew she wanted nothing more to sink her claws in and draw blood.</p>
<p>“What do I think <em>I’m </em>doing?” when Janis laughed it was hollow and cold, and Regina’s eyes darted from her face to the door and back again so fast she nearly missed it. “That’s fucking rich coming from you, Ms. ‘Fuck Over Her Best Friend by Ruining Her Life Then Pretending Like It Never Happened.’”</p>
<p>Okay, she was usually a little more eloquent when these scenes played out in her head, that’s beside the point. But Regina just groaned and tossed her hair, like her mom had said they couldn’t get ice cream on the way home from school rather than the totally succinct and put-together accusation Janis had laid on her.</p>
<p>“Ugh, you’re still hung up on that?”</p>
<p>“Still hung up––what part of ‘you ruined my life’ didn’t you understand? You turned every dumb kid at our school against me! For no reason!” At that point Janis had regained some of her gusto and squared herself up to eye level with the high-heeled blonde. “I had to do <em>virtual </em>school, Regina. VIRTUAL SCHOOL. Do you know how hard it is to focus on that shit? Do you think I wanted to miss out on the whole last year of school because <em>somebody</em> thought it was time to start the lamest rumor of the decade?”</p>
<p>“Trust me, you didn’t miss much.” The answer was short, clipped, and Regina didn’t seem willing to offer anything more on the matter as she tried to shoulder past Janis and to the door. Janis didn’t think twice before grabbing her arm and twisting her back to face her.</p>
<p>“I missed my best friend turning into a glorified barbie doll.”</p>
<p>Blue eyes flashed with a fury that shook Janis to her core, but the rest of Regina’s face remained unfazed. She didn’t even pull away from Janis’ grip. Instead, she got even closer, until they were practically nose to nose.</p>
<p>“I didn’t even start it all, you know,” she paused to let her words settle in Janis’ mind, “Those rumors. You were so obviously in love with me that other people were noticing. Maybe if you hadn’t been all over me 24/7, no on would’ve jumped to conclusions about you.”</p>
<p>“Please, like I’d ever be ‘all-over’ someone as self-obsessed as you. We get it Regina, you’re hot. You don’t have to make it your sole defining personality trait!”</p>
<p>“You think I’m hot?”</p>
<p>Well that’s not what was supposed to come next. Regina was supposed to say something like “I hate your stinking guts and I’m a big fat poopoo face.” What the hell was this? Janis was here to verbally eviscerate this girl, not dish her compliments.</p>
<p>“Don’t fuck with me, George. I’m not here to play your dumb mind games.”</p>
<p>Regina cocked her head and stepped a little closer into Janis’ circle, and she felt her heartbeat go into double-time. Under Regina’s predatory gaze nearly every muscle fiber in her body was screaming at her to flee; the apex predator was preparing to pounce.</p>
<p>“I asked you a question,” Regina’s tone was flippant, coy, and Janis hated how easily she could switch from lioness with her fangs bared to a snake coiled underneath her newest victim.</p>
<p>She swallowed down this newfound anxiety and forced herself to maintain eye contact. “I’m not here to feed your massive ego, you have Thing 1 and Thing 2 to do that for you.”</p>
<p>Nothing in her hours of rehearsed showdowns prepared her for Regina to reach her hand out, and Janis flinched slightly when she twirls a strand of her freshly bleached hair in her fingers. “Then why are you here? I’ve left you alone since you came back from your little ‘getaway.’ You’re the one that’s like, obsessed with me.”</p>
<p>“Are you saying I should be thanking you for ignoring me? Or for outing me before I even knew it for myself?”</p>
<p><em>That</em> drew a reaction from the blonde, at least one big enough that Janis couldn’t write off as a trick of the bathroom’s god-awful fluorescent lighting. Her expression morphed into some bastardized union of that plasticine disdain she wore nowadays and… shock? Disbelief? Curiosity?</p>
<p>“It was true?” Her voice was barely audible and it somehow still managed to ring in Janis’ ears. “You’re like, actually gay?”</p>
<p>Something absolutely <em>scathing</em> was on the tip of Janis’ tongue (totally), but the door swinging wide open stopped her dead in her tracks. She swore her heart stopped in that moment. It may as well have since her lungs seemingly forgot how to function as this dreadfully average specimen of high school femininity waltzed right into the middle of… whatever it is they were doing… and planted herself in front of the mirror-lined wall. Janis watched in a tense but dumbfounded awe as the girl opened her purse, pulling out some assortment of makeup products and settling into her work, com<em>pletely</em> oblivious to the fact that Regina George was sending the world’s deadliest glare into the back of her head.</p>
<p>The whole interaction couldn’t have lasted any longer than a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity before the girl happened to notice she wasn’t alone, and let’s just say that when she noticed, she <em>noticed. </em>Janis had some vague memory of that big snake thing in Harry Potter, and how you couldn’t look at it dead on lest you be turned to stone. That basilisk had nothing on the daggers Regina was glaring at this poor girl through the mirror.</p>
<p>Almost as abruptly as she’d entered, the girl was flinging her belongings haphazardly back in her purse and scurrying away as quickly has her heeled feet would carry her. The way the door slammed shut behind her would have been comical had whatever small part of Janis’ brain still had her self-preservation in mind not gone into panic mode over the repercussions of being caught alone in a bathroom with Regina George. She could see the subtweets now, was halfway to calling her mom to propose a permanent relocation to the farthest reaches of the galaxy, but when she turned to gauge Regina’s reaction the intense anger was gone and her expression was totally unreadable.</p>
<p>If she thought things had gone off the rails before, nothing in the whole wide <em>universe </em>could have prepared her for Regina George pulling her in by the back of her neck and kissing her. What shocked her even more was that, after a solid 3 seconds of neither of them daring to move from their awkward lip-lock, Janis kissed her back.</p>
<p>She had never kissed anyone before, let alone someone she hated, so she didn’t have any point of comparison that wasn’t directly from the shitty romcoms Damian forced on her every weekend. And that was a lot. Still, none of that cutesy shit seemed to accurately describe what kissing Regina George was like. Fireworks didn’t explode behind her closed eyes, but she certainly saw explosions, like canons blasting across a battlefield. Her body didn’t tingle where Regina’s skin met hers; it erupted into flames that spread out in waves down to her toes until she felt like every square inch of her was on fire. It was too much, too intense, and when she felt Regina’s tongue dart out and try to coax her mouth open, she blacked out. That’s the only way she could rationalize what she was doing.</p>
<p>She let Regina take control, backing up until the counter dug into the backs of her thighs. Her hands fell and gripped the ledge with so much force she was genuinely scared she might damage the cheap pressboard, but there was little else she could do to ground herself when Regina’s lips moved against hers as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Her own lips moved of their own accord, mimicking Regina’s in a way that she hoped wasn’t blatant plagiarism. The last thing she needed right now was Regina judging her kissing abilities.</p>
<p>Not that she cared what Regina thought of her kissing.</p>
<p>Why should she?</p>
<p>It wasn’t like this was really happening, except, oh fuck. It was.</p>
<p>Regina pulled back unexpectedly and Janis embarrassed herself with how quickly she chased after her mouth. Regina didn’t indulge her, but fully stepped away and turned her attention to her reflection, observing the damage done to her once-perfect makeup. It was such a complete 180 that Janis wasn’t sure if she was even talking to her when she spoke again.</p>
<p>“God stop thinking so hard, it’s distracting.”</p>
<p>When Janis didn’t say anything, Regina turned to look at her, still frozen, clutching the countertop. They stayed like that for a while: Regina looking at Janis while her gaze stayed fixed on the ground. She tried to glance over to Regina. As soon as she saw the disheveled state that she was in (that they were probably both in, honestly) the world seemed to collapse in on her.</p>
<p> Everything began to fade in and out of clarity, and Janis realized that the haze forming in her periphery wasn’t reality unfurling at its seams, but tears. She squeezed her eyes shut to force them back; there was no way in hell she was going to cry in front of the girl next to her. She promised herself she would never shed another tear over Regina after her little stint in the bathroom on her first day, and she wasn’t about to go back on that now.</p>
<p>She felt the tightening in her chest, how her lungs had to fight harder to draw in air, and suddenly she was 12 again, and it was like Regina could smell the shift in her vulnerability: the perfect time to strike.</p>
<p>“Here’s how this is going to go,” Regina’s tone was confident enough to snap Janis to attention, and she fixed her with a look that implied her prey had no say in wherever this was going, “You don’t mention this, to <em>anyone</em>. Ever. Not to your mom, not your therapist, not your little theater friend. Not a soul.”</p>
<p>Janis barely registered the fact that Regina had apparently kept a close enough eye on her to know who she was hanging out with despite the lengths she went to pretend otherwise. When she realized the Regina was awaiting some kind of acknowledgement, she swallowed and nodded tersely. This seemed to satisfy the girl, and she switched her attention back to herself before continuing.</p>
<p>“In return, I’ll make sure no one messes with you.” Janis’ head snapped up, earning an overly dramatic eye roll from the blonde. “Like, I’ll take you off Gretchen’s list or whatever. You won’t even be part of the daily gossip chain. You’ll fade away, free to do whatever it is you and that wannabe Ru Paul do in your free time.”</p>
<p>Janis couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculous nature of whatever Regina was getting at. “I’m already practically invisible thanks to you. So, what? I don’t tell the world that Little Miss Perfect jumped my bones in the bathroom and I get to continue living life exactly how I already was? You’re a pretty shit negotiator.”</p>
<p>“Of course not.”</p>
<p>And just like tha Regina was back in her personal space, leaving Janis overwhelmed by everything from her perfume to her eyes to the way she pulled her bottom lip between her stupid perfect teeth and––</p>
<p>“You don’t tell anyone about what we’ve done,” the words danced over Janis’ lips like the sweetest poison she’d ever tasted, “and we can keep doing it.”</p><hr/>
<p>Janis doesn’t know why she went along with it. In retrospect, she doesn’t know if she ever really had a choice. Regina George always got her way, and eventually she stopped trying to make sense of it all and channeled all of the unwanted baggage that came along with their arrangement into making North Shore’s perfect Queen Bee come undone beneath her whenever she rang. And she rang often.</p>
<p>They learned pretty quickly to seek out spots offering more privacy, to stagger their rendezvous so as to not draw any unnecessary attention, and perhaps the most important of all: to stay as far away from each other as possible when anyone else was around. Regina of course had a whole other slew of rules that Janis purposely ignored to spite her (she had to feign some semblance of control over this shit), but for a while they seemed to have a pretty stable thing going. Turns out hate-fucking your ex-best friend right under everyone’s nose was pretty satisfying.</p>
<p>At first.</p>
<p>As time went on, however, things got… complicated. And they only seemed to grow more so when Cady Heron made her North Shore debut.   </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Dead Frogs and Other Oddities</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Summer 2012</em>
</p><p> </p><p>The last bell of the school year rang loud and clear across the North Shore Elementary PA system, signaling the much-anticipated beginning of summer to students and teachers alike. Children were out of their seats and halfway out the door before the staff could so much as wish them a happy vacation. It was barely-controlled chaos as they raced to be the first ones to the car line, not even caring if their ride was there or not. Squished in the sea of bodies was a scrawny runt of a girl who seemed to be the only one not dead set on freedom, searching over the heads of those around her for something other than the nearest exit.</p><p>“Janis!”</p><p>The girl whipped around at her name and smiled wide when the crowd parted enough for a little blonde girl to squeeze through the ranks and fall in line with her. Regina George and Janis Sarkisian made quite the pair, visually, what with Janis being 90% limbs and baggy clothes and Regina looking like she walked straight out of the pages of a Ralph Lauren kids' lookbook. After 6 years of being glued at the hip though, no one even gave the mismatched duo so much as a second glance now.</p><p>“Are you so excited for the best summer ever?” Regina asked with an ungodly amount of energy, regardless of the situation. </p><p>“You say that every summer,” Janis pointed out, but Regina brushed her off.</p><p>“But this year is different, I can feel it!”</p><p>“You say that every year, too.”</p><p>“Jan! This is serious!” Janis just laughed at her friend’s theatrics. Regina’s enthusiasm for the smallest of life’s pleasures was extreme (even for an 11-year-old) and obnoxiously infectious (but Janis would die before admitting that). She enjoyed messing with her too much. “This is gonna be the greatest, bestest most spectacularest summer of all time.”</p><p>“Fine, I’ll bite. Why?”</p><p>Regina barely let her finish speaking before she fully launching herself into Janis’ side, “Because we’re finally gonna be together the whole time!”</p><p>She wasn’t wrong, Janis had to admit. They spent almost the entire break together in summers past, but there was a miserable five-week period where Regina was carted off to some swanky sleepaway camp on Chicago's northern shores of Lake Michigan. This was the first summer that Janis had convinced her mother to let her to let her attend, too. It had taken a lot of saving, and countless afternoons spent working with her grandma to earn some extra allowance, but the look on Regina’s face when Janis broke the news to her on her birthday the month before had made it all worth it.</p><p>Not that it wasn’t worth it to begin with, of course. The weeks without Regina were by far her least favorite part of the summer, and they seemed to last longer and longer with each passing year. And every year, Janis would have to smile and listen to all the stories of Regina’s time away, of the friends she made, the things she’d done, all without her, and pretend that she wasn’t jealous that someone else got to spend all that time with <em>her</em> best friend, and–</p><p>“Jan,” Regina nudged her, “You’re doing it again.”</p><p>“Sorry,” Janis muttered, embarrassed to be caught so obviously lost in her own thoughts for the umpteenth time. But Regina just smiled that dumb, infectious smile at her and Janis felt her worry melt away. That was one of her favorite things about Regina: she could always make her smile. “I was just thinking… well, what if none of your other friends like me? What if we get there and you realize you wish I stayed home?”</p><p>She didn’t know what compelled her to keep talking, especially since Regina hadn’t even asked, and as soon as the words were out of her mouth Janis wanted to shove her whole foot inside it to stop any other dumb crap from escaping. Unexpected word vomit was another (tragic) side-effect of being friends with the blonde girl.</p><p>Said girl just grabbed Janis’ hand, interlacing their fingers and giving them a reassuring squeeze, “That’s so dumb. Everyone’s gonna love you. Wanna know why?”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“Because I love you,” Regina said with the same conviction as if she was stating that the Earth was round, “And if they don’t, who cares? Then I’ll just get to have my best friend all to myself.”</p><p>Janis’ felt a funny tingling sensation spreading through her chest, one that only spread further when she saw how earnestly her friend was looking at her. It felt… nice? Foreign, for sure, but not something she’d never want to feel again.</p><p>“You promise?” she asked.</p><p>“I promise. You and me, Jan, you and me ‘til the end.”</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>September 2018</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>The leaves were starting to color around the edges as the summer drew to a close. With the fall came earlier sunsets, chillier mornings, and, at least in Janis’ case, relentless ADHD. How could she focus on anything when the changing scenery of Northern Illinois was calling to her from just outside a dirty art-room window? Rhetorical question; she couldn’t, not even when actively involved in a task she otherwise enjoyed.</p><p>“Jan!”</p><p>She blinked out of whatever trance she’d slipped into and snapped to glare at Damian posing just beyond her easel. She’d been mid-stroke, adding some highlights to his hair when a leaf of the most gorgeous shade of yellow danced into her line of sight. She lost track of how long she’d been staring out the window hoping to see it float back by, but it was obviously long enough for Damian to grow impatient.</p><p>“Janis,” she corrected, and continued painting with perhaps a smidge more force than necessary, “Never Jan.”</p><p>Damian made to hold up his hands in surrender but froze with another glare from the artist for daring to break his pose. Once she returned to her work he chanced to ask, “Were you listening to me at all just now?”</p><p>“Hmm, that depends,” she leaned in, focusing all of her attention on capturing the shading on his upper lip, “Were you talking about a boy, or something of actual substance?”</p><p>“For the sake of our friendship, I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that.”</p><p>“Okay, then no, I didn’t.”</p><p>“I was <em>asking</em>,” he paused to make eye contact, just to make sure she was actually listening this time, “If you wanted to come after school and help me run lines. Auditions for the winter production of A Christmas Carol are in two weeks and if I’m to be cast as anyone other than Marley I have to be at the TOP of my game.”</p><p>“Hmm…” Janis pretended to ponder his proposal, “I’ll have to check my books, move some things around, but I should be able to squeeze you in, for a price.”</p><p>“A ride and a gallon of apple cider sound fair?”</p><p>Before Janis could counter his barter for <em>two</em> gallons of apple cider she felt her phone buzz. She put her brush between her teeth and slid her phone out of her jacket pocket just enough to read her newest notification. </p><p>“Uh, actually, gotta rain-check on that ride. Is it cool if I just swing by a little bit later? Like, 4:30?”</p><p>“Yeeeah,” he whined, but Damian’s mother didn’t raise a fool. He saw straight through the forced nonchalance to her thinly veiled excitement, but he also wasn’t about to pry. “I suppose that’ll do. But you’ll have to stay for dinner. Mother won’t hear of sending you away unfed.”</p><p>“God bless her for that,” Janis shoved her phone back into her pocket and made a grand gesture of spinning the easel around for Damian to see the finished product. He would’ve been touched that she’d done such a beautiful job of capturing him in all his wonder if it weren’t for the crudely painted penis on his forehead. “It’s a metaphor,” she told him when she caught his unamused stare, “Cause that’s all that’s ever on your mind.”</p><p>The bell rang while Janis was in the middle of restoring Damian’s forehead to its naturally dick-free glory, and she waved him off as he headed to his next class without her. PE was her next period, but she was planning on ditching anyway, so she took her time packing up her brushes and placing the canvas to dry in the corner of the room. Once she’d figured enough time had passed, she pulled her phone out and shot off a response to the text she’d gotten earlier.</p><p><strong>[Hell on Heels 12:38pm]: </strong>Bio Lab, 3:30.</p><p><strong>[JS 12:45pm]: </strong>bio lab? you looking for some hands-on experience with human anatomy? or you just have a thing for dead frogs watching you get it on?</p><p><strong>[Hell on Heels 12:46pm]: </strong>I don’t recall asking for your input. Be there.</p><p>Janis left her on read out of spite, not at all because she had no comeback. She briefly wondered what <em>would </em>happen if she didn’t show and laughed to herself. Would Regina’s head fly off her shoulders if she realized people actually had the capacity to deny her? How long would she wait around in the dusty bio lab before accepting that Janis wasn’t going to show? Would she even care?</p><p>Janis wouldn’t.</p><p>She still ended up slipping into the bio lab at 3:28.</p><p>The room was pitch black save for a sliver of light peeking out from beneath the supply closet in the back. Janis crept forward, praying that someone had just forgotten to turn it off and that she wasn’t about to have to explain what she was doing there to Mrs. Bechdel, or some senior TA, or god-forbid, catch some other horny teens in the throes of passion. She paused with an ear pressed to the door and heard nothing, so imagine her surprise when she opened the closet and came face to face with Regina herself. They both jumped, but at least Regina had the wherewithal to pull Janis into the confined space with her before too long.</p><p>“Way to give a girl a heart attack,” she chided, her hands already working their way under Janis’ jacket.</p><p>“You’re one to talk,” Janis shot back, trying to calm her heartbeat down into some semblance of a normal range, “What are you even doing in here?”</p><p>A perfectly waxed eyebrow arched in mild annoyance, “Is this the beginning of a terrible closet joke?”</p><p>“What? No, like really, why are you here?”</p><p>“Are you okay?” Regina put the back of her hand to Janis’ forehead which only served to confuse the other girl more, “You’re not getting sick are you? Cause I can’t be getting sick. You don’t seem warm.”</p><p>“It’s 3:28.”</p><p>“Is your ability to tell time supposed to convince me that you aren’t concussed?”</p><p>“Ugh, you’re insufferable,” Janis rolled her eyes and Regina slid her hand down to rest at the back of her neck, “You’re never on time, I mean. What gives?”</p><p>The blonde just shrugged and used her new leverage to pull Janis flush against her. “Are you seriously complaining about my punctuality when you could be putting your mouth to much better use?”</p><p>“You sure you’re not the one who’s sick? Or do dead frogs just really do something for you?”</p><p>Regina rolled her eyes, but Janis could’ve sworn she saw the ghost of a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth before she leaned in and silenced any of the brunette’s further snark.</p><p>You’d think Janis would be used to this by now, but she secretly loved seeing how far she could get with her teasing until Regina got legitimately annoyed, or impatient (or both) and sped things along. So imagine her genuine surprise when she kissed back with her usual amount of vigor and Regina pulled away. Janis started to say something, but the way Regina’s fingers moved to tease her jawline shut her up far more effectively than any kiss ever could. The blonde didn’t speak; she didn’t so much as look up from Janis’ mouth before she leaned back in at a snail’s pace and ghosting their lips together again.</p><p>This was… new. Decidedly new, but not altogether unpleasant (Janis couldn’t deny the warmth settling in her gut if she tried). Unsure of what the flying fuck was going on, she did her best to follow the other girl’s lead and match the slow pace she was setting. Regina trailed her hands down from her jaw, splaying her fingers over Janis’ chest and dipping beneath the collar of her shirt to toy with the warm skin there. She wasn’t aware that she hadn’t so much as moved a muscle aside from her lips until Regina broke the kiss long enough to whisper, “Touch me.”</p><p>That she could do: touch now, think later.</p><p>Her hands snaked around Regina’s waist and pulled her impossibly closer, maneuvering them until she had the blonde backed into the bottle-lined shelves along the wall. It took a surprising amount of effort to keep her breathing even as Regina’s hands continued their leisurely exploration, and she knew her heart was beating hard enough to be felt, if not heard. Her head was fuzzy, her hands were trembling, and her poor legs almost gave out from under her entirely when Regina slipped the softest of moans into her mouth. All in all, Janis felt totally out of her element.</p><p>Hooking up with Regina was supposed to be all teeth, guns, and glory, not… whatever this was. This felt like watching a lioness play with her prey before delivering the final blow, and if Regina’s fingers kept toying with the hem of Janis’ briefs like that, she thought she might very well die then and there. It was all too much for her to handle. She stepped back from an equally shocked Regina and coughed into her elbow to avoid looking directly at the other girl.</p><p>“Look,” God, even her voice betrayed how shaken she was, “Can we speed this along? Believe it or not, I do have a life outside of our little get-togethers and I’ve spent enough time in a closet for a lifetime, so…”</p><p>Regina’s eyes narrowed, her jaw clenched, and Janis swore she could hear Damian giving her eulogy now. But Regina didn’t bear her claws or rip out her jugular (or anything equally as likely in Janis’ mind).</p><p>“Right,” she said tightly, “How rude of me to keep you from your day.” Any and all traces of the patience she’d exhibited up ‘til now were out of the picture when Regina hiked her own skirt up without breaking eye contact with the suffering brunette in front of her. “You’d better get a move on then.”</p>
<hr/><p>Janis was confused (at least more so than usual, and that’s saying something). She wished she could write off whatever transpired in the bio lab closet as a one-time oddity, but that was just the beginning of this strange new element to their relationship. It was gradual, but there was <em>definitely</em> something off about Regina George. Not in public– dear god no, in public she was as bitchy and domineering as ever– but alone? Away from all that food chain melodrama? She was acting… kind of nice? Janis scared herself out of her own thoughts with how hard she shook her head.</p><p>Okay, maybe nice was too generous a description. She was being objectively not-mean. And it had been three whole weeks since the bio lab! Her touches were gentler, her kisses more inviting and less about setting Janis in her place, hell, she’d even asked Janis how her day had been the last time they met up. </p><p>It just didn’t make sense. They’d been hooking up for almost a year, why did Regina have to go and mess with that? Normal people spiced things up in the bedroom (or closet?) by exploring kinks like BDSM or, like, feet, right? Then again there was nothing normal about Regina George. Maybe that was her kink? Basic human decency?</p><p>Janis wasn’t ruling out alien abduction and replacement, is all she was saying.</p><p>She found herself thinking about all of this far more than she’d like to admit, especially at school. At lunch, she could barely take her eyes away from the Plastics. Looking at this Regina, you’d swear nothing had changed at all. She still looked down on the ants that scurried past her in the halls, still brushed off attention off like it was little more than pesky raindrops, still refused to meet Janis’ gaze in any remotely public setting. It was all beginning to give the poor girl a headache when Damian plopped himself down in front of her.</p><p>“Darling, you’ve got to stop staring at the sun for so long, you’ll hurt your eyes.”</p><p>Janis snorted, “Are you saying Regina George is the sun?”</p><p>“No,” he shrugged and tossed a tater tot in his mouth, “But with the amount of bronzer she uses I’d at least classify her as a red dwarf.” They both burst into laughter at that mental image, and Janis sent a silent thank you to whatever deity up above sent her this weirdo to keep her sane in these trying times.</p><p>“Anyhow, enough about Malibu Barbie. I have something far more interesting to share with you.”</p><p>“I don’t know which is more insulting: the fact that you called Regina a red dwarf or said there was actually something more interesting than her in existence.” The next tater tot off Damian’s tray went flying straight into Janis face.</p><p>“Silence! The stage is mine, now. ANYWAY,” Damian leaned forward conspiratorially, “I heard we’re getting a new student tomorrow.”</p><p>Janis just blinked at him, “That’s your breaking news? We get new students like, every week.”</p><p>“Not from Africa we don’t.”</p><p>“Where do you even get this stuff?” she asked, but Damian zipped his lips and made a show of tossing away the key. In reality, he was an office assistant the period before lunch, during which he did nothing but gossip with old Mrs. Fineman until his metaphysical hair was thrice the size of Gretchen Wieners’. “Okay, so what if this new kid’s from another continent, exchange students are a thing. If that French kid last year couldn't dethrone her, no one can.”</p><p>“It may be something, it may not.” He shrugged noncommittally, “All I’m saying is that it might be enough of a splash to bump Regina’s trending status down from #1 to like, #2 depending on their personality.”</p><p>Janis was going to say something along the lines of the new kid needing to be a literal lion in order to take down North Shore’s HBIC, but she faltered as Regina stood from across the room, barely visible over Damian’s shoulder. How someone managed to make even the mundane task of bussing her table seem glamorous was beyond her, but Janis hated the way it made her stomach clench all the same. She forced her eyes back to Damian and laughed dryly, “Yeah I doubt that.”</p><p>Had she waited a moment longer, she might have caught Regina’s eyes drifting over to her before the Plastic Queen turned to leave.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Fresh Meat</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is a bit of filler, and shorter than I intended because I wasn't happy with the flashback portion, but I wanted to post an update today so I hope this is okay! Next chapter will just be longer to make up for it, and hopefully I'll be happier with how it turns out! As always, thanks for reading, and lemme know what ya think! How many more sentences can I end with an exclamation point?!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>September 2018</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Mornings were the bane of Janis Sarkisian’s existence.</p><p>Wait, abort; that was Regina… but fuck if mornings weren’t a close second, like, a hair's width of a distance apart. </p><p>Anyways, mornings. They sucked. Janis was never more thankful that her style was so lax––and that she lived so close to school––than the mornings she rolled out of bed a whopping 10 minutes before the homeroom bell rang (and that morning was a prime example). Damian gave her a look when she slid into her seat just as the bell rang (far too loud for her liking), but she couldn’t be bothered to do much about that besides raise a halfhearted middle finger over her shoulder.</p><p>The room fell unusually quiet when Principal Duvall strode in, and it wasn’t until he said the words “new student” that Janis even noticed the ginger-haired girl buzzing with anxious excitement at his side. Damian’s news from the day before echoed from somewhere in the back of her mind and Janis angled herself with  newfound interest to get a better look at the fresh meat. She was cute, if not a little weird (was she wearing a safari vest?) and after that painfully awkward introduction from Duvall was done, the new girl made her way to the lone empty desk in the room.</p><p>“Oh, you don’t want to sit there,” Janis warned when the girl (Caddy? Katie?) tried to sit next to her, “Dawn Schweitzer saves that seat for her boyfriend.”</p><p>The glare that Dawn gave the poor girl was enough to send her scurrying to the back of the room with no argument (and even a rushed apology), and oof, if that wasn’t enough to pull on Janis’ heartstrings. She turned to look at Damian as if to say, ‘Really? This is the kid you thought would make a big enough splash to rock the North Shore boat?’ This school was gonna eat this girl alive.</p><p>Things only went downhill from there. Janis and Damian watched the new kid stumble and crash her way through the (surprisingly many) classes they had together, each social faux pas cringier than the last. They saw the eagerness from this morning slip away with each cold shoulder, how her bright smile dimmed with each snide remark. Something had to be done, so when lunch came around and the Bindi Irwin lookalike dipped into a bathroom off the beaten path, it was only natural for Janis and Damian to follow suit.</p><p>Damian wasted no time in striding up to her stall and knocking, “You’ve been in there a very long time, you’re either doing drugs or very constipated from using drugs!”</p><p>The stall swung open so fast it nearly slammed into Janis’ face, but she caught it and smiled as the flustered girl came tumbling out. “Hi, I’m Janis.”</p><p>“And je m’appelle Sasha Fierce!”</p><p>“This is Damian,” she clarified, “He’s almost too gay to function.” The girl’s shoulders relaxed a little and a hesitant smile tugged at her lips as she looked between the two of them.</p><p>“Hi, I’m Cady.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Damian swooped in with all the poise and grace of a model student ambassador, giving Janis a chance to fish a neatly folded schedule from the open front pocket of Cady’s bag. She skimmed its contents; they had most of their morning classes together, but the afternoon was more varied (who in their right mind took AP Calc when they were a Junior?). Janis wasn’t fully listening to whatever Damian was saying, but knowing that he was, well, <em>him</em>, she knew it was probably a little overwhelming.</p><p>“What he’s saying is we’ll help you Caddy.”</p><p>“Oh, thank you <em>so</em> much!” the relief on Cady’s face was almost comical, “But it’s Cady–”</p><p>“Yeah, I’m gonna call you Caddy.”</p><p>“So, when did you move here?” Damian asked before Cady had the chance to respond to that.</p><p>“Oh, uh, three days ago.”</p><p>“Why’d you stop being homeschooled?”</p><p>“I wanted to get socialized!”</p><p>“Oh, you’ll get socialized alright, a little slice like you.” Fear flashed in Cady’s eyes, but Damian kept right on talking, “I once read on a tote bag that ‘Everything fits Somewhere,’ so let’s start there. Where do you fit?”</p><p>“I… I don’t know,” Cady gripped the straps of her backpack nervously, “I fit in with the kids in Kenya, but there weren’t that many of us. I’ve never had so many…” she gestured helplessly, “options before.”</p><p>“Then think of us as your personal shoppers,” Damian took the girls’ hands in his own and practically dragged them all out of the bathroom, “And let’s see if we can figure out where you belong!”</p><p>The cafeteria was at its normal level of chaos, but to Cady it was even more wild than the Savannah she grew up in. The room was filled to the brim with more bustling bodies than she’d ever seen, and while she still felt hopeful, that feeling was now tinged with apprehension. Seeing the tension creep its way back into Cady’s body, Janis slung an arm around her shoulders to try and ease her worry. She’d been overwhelmed, too, when she first experienced lunch time at North Shore (albeit under drastically different circumstances).</p><p>The trio made their way around the edges of the cafeteria, Damian breaking down the hierarchies of each table they passed while Janis steered a helpless Cady along behind him. She could practically see Cady’s brain soaking up Damian’s every word as he covered what seemed to be every clique under the sun. For the most part she was silent, only nodding and smiling every now and then in time to Damian’s lecture, but as they passed the table full of math nerds, she grabbed ahold of Damian’s arm and pointed excitedly like a kid at the zoo.</p><p>“Who are those guys?”</p><p>“Oh, darling, no. Those are the mathletes.” He ushered her away without so much as a second glance in their direction, “Joining them is social suicide, trust me.”</p><p>“But I like math…”</p><p>“And that is something you’re better off keeping to yourself if you want to avoid long-lasting social ridicule!” Cady looked like she was going to say something, but instead shut her mouth and let Damian continue his tour. Eventually they came to a stop at an empty table that Janis quickly laid claim to, and Damian let out a gasp that would have put even the most seasoned telenovela actors to shame.</p><p>“But, soft! Who is at this table here? Why, it’s Janis!”</p><p>Janis snorted at the theatrics, but indulged him by responding in song, “And Damian, too!” She offered a bemused smile to the (still) slightly nervous girl before her, “Look Caddy, we’re not exactly ‘joiners’, but we can promise not to give two shits if you come to school looking like Crocodile Dandy every day for the rest of the year.”</p><p>“Truly,” Damian nodded, “And despite everything I literally just told you, fitting in isn’t all it’s cut out to be. You’re free to do what you want, but if you want to skip all the rest of the mess, you’re more than welcome to cut your losses and sit with us.”</p><p>With two pairs of imploring eyes trained on her, what was Cady to say but: “Okay!”</p><p>She took her backpack off and sat next to Damian (fine by Janis, she was prone to lounging across multiple seats anyway), and the three of them settled into small talk that was only semi-forced on Janis’ part. As the minutes passed, Cady’s stress visibly lessened until eventually she was rambling a mile a minute about every little thing she could think of. She told them all about growing up in the Savannah, and how she had never so much as seen an iPhone until landing in O’Hare, and how one time she was bitten by a lion cub and spent the next four months absolutely convinced she was some kind of were-lion… Janis and Damian were enthralled to say the least.</p><p>So enthralled that this might have been the first lunch in nearly a year that Janis wasn’t sneaking glances to the Plastics’ table.</p><p>Cady swallowed the last bite of her sandwich and made to gather up her trash when she stopped short, momentarily frozen in awe.</p><p>“Who’s at that table there?” she asked, and Janis’ blood ran cold knowing exactly who Little Miss Africa was staring at.</p><p>“Don’t look at them!” Damian cried, shielding her eyes and drawing the attention of everyone within a 2-table perimeter of them. Janis rolled her eyes and leaned forward enough to pry his fingers away from a bewildered Cady’s face.</p><p>“Jeez Damian, relax. She needs the full North Shore 101, right?” She turned to gesture over her shoulder at the Plastics in all their glory, “We call those three the Plastics.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“Because they’re shiny, fake and hard.” Damian said, “Duh.”</p><p>“Right,” Janis drawled, “Anyways, that there’s Karen Smith: the dumbest person you’ll ever meet.”</p><p>“I once saw her put a ‘D’ in the word ‘orange’.”</p><p>Cady laughed but fell silent at the deadly serious expressions they both wore.</p><p>“That,” Damian took over, pointing to the brunette at the other end of the table from Karen, “Is Gretchen Wieners. She knows everything about everyone. If you have a secret, even if you don’t know it, trust that she’ll find out about it. And when she does, it’s only a matter of time until she runs along to tell––”</p><p>“Regina George.” Damian and Cady turned to Janis, who, to her credit, was doing everything in her power to keep her face neutral (and someone give that girl an Oscar now because it finally looked halfway convincing). “How do I even begin to describe Regina George?”</p><p>For the briefest of moments, Janis entertained the thought of spilling every dirty detail of her and Regina’s harried past to this girl. Everyone at North Shore knew Regina George, even if they’d never so much as breathed the same air as her. Janis couldn’t think of the last time––if ever––that she’d had the opportunity to paint Regina in whatever light she wanted. But here was Caddy, a blank slate, a fresh canvas practically begging to soak up every angry shade of red that Janis saw when she thought about the blonde</p><p>(And pink, can’t forget the pink.)</p><p>But then she noticed Damian looking expectantly at her, ready to step in at any sign that Janis seemed uncomfortable, and reality set back in enough for her to realize that spilling the beans to a girl she just met in front of her <em>literal</em> best friend might not be the best idea. (God, if she thought he was dramatic before, Janis didn’t even want to imagine how he’d react to <em>that</em> kind of gossip in the middle of the cafeteria.)</p><p>“Regina George is like, the Queen Bee of North Shore. We’re all just her drones that work for her, then die.” When Cady looked a little lost Janis added, “You know how bees work right?”</p><p>“I think so, or at least I thought I did. Is her primary directive to mate with you?”</p><p>Logically, Janis knew the ‘you’ was a generalization, but that didn’t stop her entire body from going into a panic at what this painfully unsocialized creature of the jungle just fucking said to her. Damian’s reaction was far less “fight or flight,” (understandable, since he wasn’t the one whose brain was just bombarded with memories that were <em>definitely</em> not school appropriate), and he took over while Janis recovered from what may as well have been a mild stroke.</p><p>“It’s not quite that literal,” Damian said, trying his damnedest not to laugh. “Regina is the most popular girl in school, has been for years. She’s practically untouchable.”</p><p>“Just, stay away from them.” Janis was dying for a change of topic (and her face was only getting redder thinking of just <em>how touchable</em> Regina could be), “Trust me, getting caught up in Plastic Drama is a recipe for disaster.”</p><p>Cady seemed to get that this conversation was over (for now) and excused herself to throw her trash away before she said anything else that might send her new friend to the hospital. Damian turned to Janis once she’d left, but she just waved him off, smiling feebly to assure him she was alright. Cady was on her way back to their table when she stopped short, and in truly comical synchronicity Janis and Damian’s jaws fell open when they realized why. There was no way to hear what was being said––they were too far away and the cafeteria way too loud––but sure as the stars shined above, Regina George had called Cady Heron over to the Plastics’ table.</p><p>“Oh my god,” Damian whispered, and oh my god indeed. Cady looked to Damian and Janis as if to seek some kind of approval to approach the lions’ den, but the two of them were too dumbstruck to offer her much more than confused shrugs. What could she have done if they’d said no anyway? She was already being pulled into Regina’s orbit. Janis didn’t know Cady well, but she knew the girl didn’t deserve to be totally eviscerated on her first day of school, which could very well happen if Regina so chose.</p><p>They watched with bated breath as Cady approached the table, and Janis found herself leaning ever so slightly forward (as if that would give her any better of a vantage point for whatever was about to go down). If there was anything she’d learned about Regina over the last 3 years, it was that the girl was unpredictable, and it was no exaggeration to say that this sole interaction could make or break Cady’s entire North Shore career.</p><p>Regina was doing most of the talking, and Janis would’ve killed at that moment to know what disgusting small talk they were making. Cady didn’t seem any more uncomfortable than she had when Janis and Damian had accosted her in the bathroom, which was <em>ridiculous </em>considering, well, that they were them and this was Satan incarnate. The longer this went on the antsier Janis got; every saccharine smile Regina flashed Cady made Janis’ stomach turn, and when the blonde’s hand shot out to catch Cady’s wrist she almost stopped breathing altogether.</p><p>She thought back to the shift in Regina’s behavior over the last few weeks, how night and day her attitude could be at the flip of a switch. Maybe Regina was––God forbid––changing? It wasn’t <em>totally</em> outside the realm of possibility (though the last time Regina took a behavioral 180 was when she effectively ruined Janis’ life, soooo… you couldn’t exactly blame her for being wary). She searched the blonde’s face for any signs that she was up to anything dastardly, but her expression was the same plasticine mask she donned day after day: unreadable. Until it wasn’t, and Janis got a sick satisfaction when she saw a flash of disgust in Regina’s eyes, the telltale coiling of the snake before it lunged.</p><p>Imagine her surprise when Regina’s fangs sank into Jason Williams instead of the prime cut of teasing material that was Safari Barbie.</p><p>That was definitely unexpected. Not the public verbal flogging, that was par the course with Regina, but on behalf of someone other than herself? Unheard of. She didn’t even stand up for Gretchen or Karen like that (not that anyone teased <em>them</em> to their faces).</p><p>She most certainly didn’t defend Janis like that.</p><p>An ugly discomfort spread through Janis’ body at the memory of the first time those fangs had turned on her. ‘Regina was <em>bad</em>,’ she tolde herself, ‘she was <em>mean.’</em> Whatever twisted mind games she was pulling by playing nice when Janis had her hands down her pants were just that: a game. God, Janis was an idiot to even think that––</p><p>To think that…</p><p>What did she think?</p><p>Did she think that Regina could possibly do anything without manipulating those around her? That she was capable of any genuine human emotion after years of being the actual worst?</p><p>Did she think Regina could actually like her, too?</p><p>That thought alone hit her like a bus. There was no way in h-e-double-hockey-sticks that Janis could ever, <em>would </em>ever catch feelings for this terror of a girl. After everything she’d put her through? She really must be going insane to even entertain the thought. So what if Regina had started acting like she even remotely gave a damn about Janis? That wasn’t real. None of that shit ever saw the light of day. This Regina, the one that smiled at the prospect of making some teenage dweeb piss himself in fear, <em>that </em>was real, and Janis couldn’t afford to forget that.</p><p>Maybe that’s why, when Cady returned to her and Damian with a disbelieving smile and news of the golden ticket to the Plastics’ table for the week, Janis cackled maniacally. This was perfect! What better way to prove once and for all (even if just to herself) that Regina was the manipulative lying scumbag Janis knew her to be than to have an inside man––er, teenage girl? If Regina was going to show her true colors to anyone at all, it would be from the comfort of her throne in her inner circle, a place Janis hadn’t had the pleasure of occupying since the eighth grade.</p><p>Did she feel a twinge of guilt when Cady showed apprehension at doing something ‘bad?’ Yes. Was she willing to take a page from Regina’s book and say, “We’re your friends, would we ask you to do something bad?” Also yes. What was one little white lie in the grand scheme of things? Besides, Damian seemed just as eager, and he wasn’t even aware of the entire mental rollercoaster Janis had just been on.</p><p>When Cady eventually agreed to be their little pink-clad spy, Janis felt like she was on top of the world, because for once she finally felt like she was finally a step ahead of Regina George. As she laid in bed that night, she realized she'd never been so excited to wake up the next morning.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks so much for reading!! If you have any thoughts/ideas/feedback, I'd love to hear it (either on here or Tumblr @glutenfreerye)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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